I try to snatch the knife from her hands, and she jabs at me, so I kick her in the knee. She buckles, and I run past her into the parlor. I look around wildly for something I can use to restrain her.
But she’s already running at me with the knife. I jump onto the love seat, then leap on top of her. We hit the floor so hard that something in her body crunches.
I’ve heard that sound before. I scramble off her, certain that it’s already over.
She’s already back on her feet, limping and grimacing, but still coming at me.
I grab a silver platter off the coffee table and hit her in the head. The clang is resounding. I drop the platter, startled by my own force, and she staggers.
Surely she’ll give up now.
She’s not giving up.
She slashes at me wildly, and I skitter back. I find a wine bottle on the coffee table and hold it up like a club. She hesitates.
“All right, old woman.” I’m breathing hard. “Just stand aside and let us do what we need to do. We’ll be out of—”
She slashes at me again. I throw my arm in front my face instinctively. There’s a sharp pain, and then, there’s blood. There’s more blood than I expected, and for a moment, I’m stunned by the sight of it.
I can’t take a light touch with this woman. She’s not taking a light touch with me.
I whack her in the face with the wine bottle, and she collapses to the floor. I drop the wine bottle and snatch up her knife instead, then back up to the far side of the room, ready for whatever she’s going to try next.
“Emanuela!” Ale is halfway to the front door now. “What are you doing? Let’s just go—”
“Not yet,” I say.
On the floor, the housekeeper is stirring, and if I don’t stop her, she’s going to stop me. I have to protect myself. I have to protect Ale.
“We shouldn’t stay in here any longer,” Ale says. “They’re going to come back—”
From the dining room, I hear a door crack open. The door to the underground well.
But the housekeeper is back on her feet. She grabs my abandoned wine bottle and chucks it at me.
It misses. It hits the enormous, beautiful stained-glass window behind me—the one that depicts the white-gloved hands making the water. The bottle goes right through. For a moment, we both stare at the jagged hole.
Then she charges.
It happens so fast. She dives at me like she’s going to strangle me, so I push the knife into her as hard as I can. It slips right between two of her ribs, and it feels strangely neat and perfect. Like it’s supposed to be there. She makes a faint gurgling noise. Already, her blood is seeping out of her. It’s staining my fingers and her white apron, and for a moment, I just stare at it.
She must have known this would happen if she kept fighting. If she underestimated me, that’s not my fault.
Someone is screaming. It’s not me. I don’t think it’s me, at least. I look around, and I catch a glimpse of Verene emerging from the dining room, but then the housekeeper coughs right in my face. Her hot blood splatters my cheek, and for one horrible moment, I meet her eyes.
She doesn’t look afraid. She looks completely certain of herself.
I don’t understand. I’m the one who’s besting her. I’m the one who’s supposed to feel confident, because I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do. The housekeeper failed to stop me. She failed to protect her charges. She shouldn’t be at peace with that.
I yank the knife out, and it makes a loud, wet noise. The housekeeper groans and doubles over. Blood dribbles out of the wound and stains the black-and-white tile near my feet, and I just stand there, clutching the dirty knife. It occurs to me, then, that this isn’t like pushing a woman off a balcony and snapping her neck. If this kills her, it’s going to be drawn out and messy. I’m going to have to listen to her ragged breathing and watch her struggle to stay upright and know that she’s in pain. I’m going to have to watch the omens crawl across her skin.
So I kick her into the stained-glass window. It doesn’t feel like a decision. It feels more like a necessity. I need her out of my sight.
It’s spectacular. The whole thing shatters in a spray of blue-and-white glass, and I have to shield my face. When I open my eyes, I can see the black veil and the street below. Tiny pieces at the edge of the window are still breaking loose and falling, like teardrops.
I hear distant screaming from the square. I see even more lantern light coming our way.
I can’t believe I stuck a knife in her. I can’t believe any of it just happened. It was all so quick.
I turn around. Ale is in the same spot, his face white. At the entrance to the dining room, Theo and Verene are frozen in their tracks. They were running at me. They were trying to stop me.
But they didn’t. They couldn’t.
I point the knife at Verene. I heard her scream earlier, but now, she looks strangely blank. I don’t like it at all. It makes me suddenly aware of the sick feeling of wrongness that’s filled up my throat. I want to say something—something pointed and decisive and unconcerned. But if I open my mouth, I’m going to vomit.
This is exactly what needed to happen, I remind myself. Verene needs to know how thoroughly I plan to defeat her.
She needs to know what I’m capable of.
I’m capable of killing someone. I can push them off a balcony, if I have to. But I can also put a knife between their ribs. I can feel their blood all over my hands.
All I want to do is wipe this blood off. It’s sticky, and the smell is in my nose and in my throat. But I can’t wipe it off. Then I’ll look like I’m sorry about this, and I refuse to feel sorry about it. The housekeeper wasn’t going to get out of my way. She was an obstacle.
I swallow hard.
“What?” I say to Verene. “If you’re going to make this difficult, then so am I.”
I’m amazed at how steady my voice is.
Verene and Theo don’t move. They look like they still haven’t quite figured out what’s happening. All at once, I imagine them as the little children in that portrait I saw, in the arms of the woman I just threw out a window. But surely they didn’t care that much about her. She was only a housekeeper.
“Well?” I say. “Are you just going to stand here? Because I thought you were—”
“I’ll kill you,” Verene says.
I can’t comprehend the words. Her face is still so blank, like she just said something matter-of-fact. Something that she says a hundred times a day.
“I’ll kill you.”
She says it again. Her voice is low but unmistakable.
“You’ll kill me?” My mouth dry, and I find myself tightening my grip on the knife. “Really?”
“She was innocent,” she says. “She never did anything to you.”
“Actually, she attacked me,” I say. “She said she wanted to protect you. So, really, this is your fault—”
Verene takes a step forward.
She doesn’t have a weapon, and I do. She doesn’t have any magic that I don’t know about. She can’t hurt me.
And yet, I feel suddenly outmatched. I’ve never seen this kind of cold, bone-deep determination in anyone’s eyes.
“I’m not going to pretend I know everything about the bizarre way your people worship you,” I say. I haven’t taken my eyes off her. I’m afraid to even blink. “But I’m pretty sure that if you killed someone, your city would no longer consider you a… good person.”